Local Business 20/20 – A Vision For The Future with Bill Smith of Boston SEO Services

Neil Howe: (00:00)Hello and welcome to the show. This is your host, Neil Howe, and we are discussing local business 2020 a vision for the future where we’re gonna talk about what you need to do in order to get your business prepared for the new decade that is coming. And today my special guest is bill Smith and bill is with a Boston SEO services as a.org, I believe at a Boston. So Bill, welcome to the show.

Neil Howe: (00:33)She gives a 30 second rundown of what you have been doing up there in Boston for your clients and your SEO business.

Bill Smith: (00:42)So, um, yeah, I help, I focus mainly on local businesses helping small to medium size businesses, um, get more exposure and get more customers online, um, using their website in other web properties that we’ll probably talk about during the interview. Um, I’ve been doing this working with local businesses since. Okay. 2012. Uh, so I’ve been doing it awhile. I’ve been doing online marketing since 2003. So in the online marketing field, I’ve been involved in it for a little bit of time. Um, and I work with mostly local businesses. Doesn’t have to be in Boston, but it has to be a local business.

Neil Howe: (01:21)Yeah. And I love local businesses as well. I think it’s the backbone of society. They’re the people that are right. They’re the ones with families or making things happen and your local neighborhood. So it’s really important to get those businesses going and give them as much help as they possibly can. And hopefully with the information that we’re going to talk about today, it’s going to be beneficial, uh, to those local businesses that really want to use the internet in order to get more customers, clients or patients for their business. Now, all kinds of businesses. Do you work with bill? I know you kinda, uh, work with a lot of people in the law niche, is that correct?

Bill Smith: (02:01)Yup. I work in the law niche, um, um, dentists. Um, I, I work with contractors also, but I, I focus on attorneys a lot. It’s just a, it’s, it’s, it’s good to have a, an area where, you know, and kind of like an attorney, right? Like an attorney can practice any type of law rally, but they usually focus on a certain area. Um, so same thing with what I do. I, I focus on, a few different areas and that’s, that’s it. Um, is just a better way to use my resources and, and just have a better knowledge about that industry, you know, to help them.

Neil Howe: (02:40)Yeah, that’s really important. When you niche down like that, you get very familiar with the industries to you, you know, the, the language, you know, how to write about the industry and you know, all the ins and outs of what, uh, these lawyers especially, uh, are looking for. So, you know, from a local point of view, and I’m, we’re keeping this interview, uh, local, but there’s different things when we’re looking at Google my business and the maps, which I think where a lot of the business is coming from these days. Um, you know, there’s a couple of things to consider cause if somebody’s doing a search for a restaurant near me that is, you know, they’re really looking for that location based result. But if you’re, if you’re looking for an attorney, say in Boston, you don’t necessarily want the one nearest, you wouldn’t necessarily be the best. So how do you optimize that? Google my business listing for uh, an attorney,

Bill Smith: (03:47) I don’t know how many people use them, but there’s also search filters on that local listings, the map listing. So you can, you can sort it by relevance. You can sort it by distance. Most of the time it’s sorted. I distanced by default, I believe. Um, maybe it’s a little mix of relevance too, but then there’s also highest rated. Like you can select that. So, so, um, that’s some ways is helping it please get abuse from their business. Cause if someone’s looking for the top rated attorney, um, if you have a lot of reviews that will help you be found that way. Um, but then generally like a city like Boston, I would just want to, they don’t have, like you said, it doesn’t have to be location-based. I just want to take over kind of the whole city was that attorney because it especially does a good, good, um, comparisons like an attorney to compared to a dentist in Boston.

Bill Smith: (04:48)I may, I may look for a smaller area for a dentist because people have to visit a dentist, um, and they don’t want to go all the way to the other side of Boston to, um, you know, visit that dentist most likely, unless it’s a special, you know, a special field like, um, if it’s implants or some sort of dental surgery, maybe they’ll travel across Boston. Um, but with an attorney there may be an office visit, but a lot of times things are done over the phone. So, um, I, I look for an attorney to just take over the whole area of,

Neil Howe: (05:23)So, how do you do that then? What kind of things would you do for, you know, a, a local attorney in order to take over and make them the, the, the name that is synonymous with their occupation?

Bill Smith: (05:38)Right. Um, so focusing on the, just the Google bind business right now, making sure that everything is complete and consistent throughout that whole Google my business with everything that’s out there about their business. So I mean we talk about it a lot, but it’s still really important as the nap name, address and phone. You want to make sure that [inaudible] consistent throughout the internet. So that’s, that’s one of the first steps. [inaudible] the other step is making sure everything is complete and then trying to just have more information out there than anybody else. So Google, Google really is, they’re trying to get these, um, their posts, you know, there’s a, your business can post different things. So they’re trying to really promote that and um, having that doing stuff, doing things that Google is trying to promote actually helps you too because you’re, you know, kind of give them them the content that they need to, to use that.

Bill Smith: (06:36)Um, so posting to Google my business helps also, um, it having even photos, even for an attorney, like when I say complete it, like even even having like my attorney client in Boston, say my personal injury attorney, I actually go in, I, I, I’d go in and do like three 54 for forum because does not, it just sets you apart from that other business. I’m actually a good example. This isn’t an attorney, but I, I have a, um, insurance client and you know, if you look at, so when Google my business, if you have, if you, if you have one, if you log in as there’s a tab called insights, which is really good cause you can see what’s going on with your business. So one of the things with this insurance company, it’s [inaudible] yeah, we’ll compare you to other businesses in the area. So another insurance company in the town or in the city, um, his photo views are like, I don’t know, a 20 T hit, here’s 20 more times photo views in any other, other insurance company in the area. So, even though it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s one of those things where, how was he getting these views on his photos? It must be because the thing they get on, they go on his Google my business. Um,

Neil Howe: (07:58)right. And you know, I’ve got some stats and I talked about this, uh, before, uh, I think search engine land PO an article with a correlation between the amount of photos that you have on your Google my business page, uh, compared to the amount of calls that you’re actually getting to your business. And you know, it seems like a lot, but businesses with over a hundred photos on their Google my business page or getting an average of 520% more calls than you. Well, the average more calls than the average. So that is something that, uh, people can do, especially, uh, you know, I’m not sure how many, uh, pictures though the lawyers will have, but if we’re talking specifically, uh, service area businesses or you’re gonna, you’re doing a job, you can take a picture of that and you can put it out on your Google my business page. But, uh, you know, if it has that much of a correlation between the amount of photos and the, uh, amount of calls that you get, obviously that’s something that they have to look at, uh, pretty, uh, stringently there.

Bill Smith: (09:10)Yeah, absolutely. And even for an attorney, um, yeah, you can put up team photos, a holiday photos. I mean it’s, it doesn’t really have to be, you know, if it’s a personal injury trait, it doesn’t have to be someone in a car accident, you know, it could be just, just things about your business in Google really. It really, they really do fave of businesses that put up more photos.

Neil Howe: (09:33)Yeah. And that’s one thing that I noticed as well with photos. Uh, no. Obviously there’s things that you can do with photos. Uh, you can optimize photos to, uh, you know, most people think about the, the title and on the Altecs, which is fine, but you can go further and you can put the geo coordinates. You’re on those photos as well, which really tells Google, uh, exactly. You know, where your business is, whether you have a, a stationary business like a law firm or whether you’re a service based business, uh, shows the actual, uh, radius of work that you do and where you actually go. So just really feeding information to Google all the time and trying, you know what I, what I say all the time is you, you really have to prove to Google everything that you say on your Google my business page is true and you want to, you know, back that up with proof and you know, putting that data on photos and delivering it across the internet is definitely one that way that you can do that.

Bill Smith: (10:37)Yeah. And it’s simple. Like it sounds complicated, like, Oh, put the geolocation data on, but just take a picture with your cell phone, you know, and it puts it on there automatically. So I tell them like, like I had a, um, a client that does seamless gutters, you know, the contractor and I just told him every job you go to just just take before and after photos in it. And it really did make a huge difference for him because it makes it even [inaudible], it expands your, your, um, your area because if he’s in one city and he’s doing a job in another and it sees that, you know, it’s just gonna it just kind of expands his area where he’s reaching people even just for those photos.

Neil Howe: (11:16)Yeah. Well, you know, something that I’ve noticed with a Google my business recently is, you know, if you are in the city, yes. [inaudible] Boston, you know, I’m in Atlanta, so I know the suburbs here, but [inaudible] well let me do Atlanta because I do know the suburbs. Um, if you’re in Atlanta and you have an Atlanta city address, you’re not likely to show up in Marietta or Roswell or Alpharetta, which are suburbs of Atlanta. Uh, you’re likely just to show in the city. So, um, you know, the reach that, um, Google my business once had is not necessarily there anymore. So, you know, if you want to show up in a different suburb, you’re likely gonna have to have a different Google my business address. Is that something that you, uh, have seen or help your clients do is create new addresses?

Bill Smith: (12:14)Um, yeah. You can expand the reach even with just the photos. You can, you can expand the, the amount of area you actually take up with the Google my business. But yeah, if you can put up another Google my business in having an address, um, that’s great. You don’t have like a satellite office. It just depends. Um, for myself personally because I do a local lead generation too. Mmm. Mmm. I have, you know, having a, having a Google my business even without a website generates a lot of calls and having those, um, yeah, they work great. It’s just that you have to have, you know, [inaudible]. Yeah, it’s, um, so if you, if you show the address, which you do get a little benefit for showing you address I believe. Um, but if you’re a service business and you’re not, you don’t really want to show your ad, you know, it doesn’t even, it asks, you know, you Google my business when you set it up is do you, do you serve people at your location?

Bill Smith: (13:17)And if you don’t, um, then it won’t show you address. Um, but it’s just how, okay. How much, how much, how would you know if you, if you’re taking phone calls and so on and says, Oh, I’ll come down to visit you and you, you not at that location, like that kind of might cause a problem for the pool. I’ve never had it. I’ve never had a call where someone says I’m here and no one’s here. But still, it’s one of those things, it’s just how far you want to take it and how much do you know how much it’s, it’s there. It’s still a, it’s a risk,

Neil Howe: (13:55)right? Yeah. Speaking of risk, a recently, over the past few months, Google has been suspending, uh, thousands and thousands of these, uh, Google my business listings because of things like that. There are a lot of, uh, you know, lead generation companies out there that will just go and open a, uh, an address, uh, get that address, you know, get the Google post card and then, you know, and never use that location again. Google is really trying to crack down on that. So, you know, yes, you have to have an office. Uh, you have to have somebody there according to Google’s, uh, rules, right? But what we forget is Google’s, you know, they’re, they’re pretty smart. They know what they’re doing. They, uh, with the Google maps, they have, you know, I’ve got their car around everywhere. They exactly where everything is, and they can take a snapshot of your exact location because of the work that they put into their maps. So, you know, if you say that you are, you know, a law office and it takes a snapshot of your area and it’s a, a ups store or something like that, right, then, you know, they’ll nail it right away. They’ll shut that listing down. So you’ve definitely gotta be careful.

Bill Smith: (15:16)Yeah, I mean, there are, I, it’s definitely that, that’s true. And I would never use like a mailbox address like that. But, um, there are a lot of startup companies that all work in a shared office space. So I mean, that’s, that’s one thing. And I see it, I see it a lot with, they all have the same address. It’s probably not a great benefit. If those, the same businesses all in that same address and they, they were all the same type of business, it, it would be tough to rank, um, back. That can be a problem. So you, speaking of it like attorneys where they might have a, um, a complex where there’s a, you know, a lot of different attorneys that are in this whole office space. Sometimes that can be a problem to rank an attorney like you, if there’s three personal injury attorneys in that S complex and they all have different, like, um, you know, office numbers in, in that same address, it can be a little bit of an issue.

Neil Howe: (16:13)Right? And, and that’s, uh, called filtering I believe, where people really just, you know, they’ll look at maybe one or the most prominent one of those three and they’ll think that, well, they’re all providing the same service for the same address, so I’m not going to include these other two and you won’t even show up on the map. So how do you, uh, help those businesses if that’s the case, to, uh, get back on the map. And show up. I think it comes back down to branding and being the most relevant choice in order to do that.

Bill Smith: (16:50)Exactly. Branding and building more authority than the other ones. And going back to the, if, if you have more reviews and you have more photos and you know that you’re going to be more relevant. And so, uh, it’s, it’s a little bit of work. [inaudible] it becomes a little more work than it than it would normally be if the, there they are, but it can still be done. You know, you can still, even though if you’re not showing up, you can still show up. It’s just, it’s just a little tougher.

Neil Howe: (17:17)Yeah. So there, there’s one word that keeps coming up, and I said this in every interview that I’ve done so far about the, the local business and that is branding. I think it’s a word that, uh, Google really likes. They show the big brands, especially you said you work in some of the construction issues. Uh, and I’m sure it’s with the law in issues as well. Um, but if you do a Google search, uh, say for, uh, paving or construction general contract or something like that, you don’t really have much chance as a local business to get on the front page of Google. You’ve got your ads, now you’ve got the Google guarantee and you’ve got your regular paper click, and then you’ve got your local three pack listing and there’s often times in the ad in there as well. But underneath that, your general organic section, I’ve seen up to 10 of those, 10 out of 10 of those listings being taken by the likes of a home advisor and Angie’s list Alignable and better business Bureau.

Neil Howe: (18:31)And yeah, it doesn’t give the little guy much of a chance to get on that front page. And I believe that the reason for that is because Google has built, are these Google likes brands so much. And these companies like we just listed the home advisor and yellow pages and all that, they’ve built up these brands over time and they’re getting rewarded for it, uh, from Google. So yeah. Uh, how does a local company first train get into one of those spots? Um, and how do they build their brand? What’s the best way to do that?

Bill Smith: (19:09)Yeah, well, I mean, well, some of them, if they’re there, I would, you know, I really don’t like Yelp. I don’t want to get into a whole tirade about Yelp, but I wouldn’t use, I wouldn’t use Yelp as an example, but, um, say um, Oh, this, let’s say Alignable, right. So if you, if they have an Alignable account in Alignable is ranking on the first page of Google, I would definitely pay attention to that. Even though it’s not your website, it’s still, you know, kind of your property and why not? I’ve tried to push that up and that’s one of the things I do with my clients is, is branding that way. So citations or kind of a form of branding, right? It does a little bit of little bit of everything actually. But then, um, these other relevant places where you can have your, your, your web address.

Bill Smith: (20:02)Except for Yelp though. I mean, if you want to mess with it, go ahead. But I wouldn’t. Um, but Alignable and even LinkedIn. And so then, then you have these brands and make sure everything’s tied together and tell Google. So you tell Google, let Google know that, Hey, this, this is all me, this is all my brand. Um, certain ways to do that is just building these up and having consistent information on those important pots you don’t want, I mean the content can be different, the description of the business and things like that. But again, if there’s a place to put your name, address, phone number, that should be the same but also a tying those together. So if you can tie you LinkedIn, go back to your Alignable, um, well or your Facebook business page, having links to your other web properties besides just your website that helps Google tie things together. [inaudible]

Bill Smith: (20:51)goal. That’s what, that’s one of the things the algorithm wants to do is just tie all these things together. If you do a search for a business, a lot of times now you’ll see on the, you know, if you typed in [inaudible] Boston SEO services and looked at the brand, you might see that that info info box and it will say also found on the web and it’ll show these other websites cause it’s trying to tie all these things together. I know the way to do that if you do have a website is using schema mock up and telling Google it’s called same as. So you’re telling Google, Hey, this is my website and then you list all your properties and go. But all these other things, this LinkedIn profile is Facebook, this Alignable. These are all the same as me. And that builds your entity. I mean we call it, it’s a brand and an entity, a kind of not the same thing, but Google looks at it as, Oh this is all one type of unit. Yeah.

Neil Howe: (21:47)Yeah. That’s something that a lot of local businesses don’t do is use that schema markup. And, uh, you know, like you say that same as, and what I was saying before is you got to prove to Google what you’re saying is true. So if you are a brand at such and such location, then you’ve got to prove it to Google. And you know, it’s the same as my Facebook is the same as my a blogger. Uh, you know, and I like to use lots of Google properties [inaudible] as well and quit and quit in the map. And uh, the Google drive, Google photos, uh, you know, and link them all together like you said, um, is definitely something that can, uh, move the needle. But you know, uh, when asked it, when surveyed local businesses were asked, what is the number one way that you get clients to your business? And I know we are in the, uh, digital media and online advertising, but 85% of people that were surveyed still say that the number one way that they get business is through referral and word of mouth marketing. And you’ve been doing something that’s pretty special, I think over the last, well with getting on for six months now. And that is, uh, you know, connecting with people on LinkedIn and given a shoutout tell, tell me about that. How it’s, you know, helped you become a branded and have some name recognition for what you do.

Bill Smith: (23:22)Yeah, absolutely. It’s been fun and it wasn’t, it wasn’t my idea. Um, somebody, so what happens is we just try to, I try to highlight somebody every day. Um, I’m Mike link, I’m active on LinkedIn a lot. And it could be a local business. It could be, it could be anybody. If I just see something interesting that’s kind of what, how I, how I do it. And yeah, so every day pretty much I highlight, somebody just mentioned them, tell them a little bit about their business. I do videos and um, people appreciate it. You know, I’m not trying to get business from it, but it is like a, I never really thought of it as a personal branding type of thing, but it is, it definitely is. And people buy from people, you know, we want to do business with a person. It’s just, it’s way more personal.

Bill Smith: (24:13)But yeah, it wasn’t my idea. This guy, this guy, my friend of mine, Christopher Gray, mentioned me in one of his posts and I say it every day, but it’s true. I thought it was really cool, you know, so I’m like, [inaudible] y’all somebody who’s doing this. And it was just nice to, you know, I popped on my LinkedIn and I say, Oh, she’s someone who mentioned me with what’s going on here. So, um, and he, the guy that, I dunno [inaudible] but it’s as far back as I can trace it as this guy, um, Michael propor and he is using like then New York city area I believe. But, uh, and he’s almost done with his, he’s like, I’m kind of, I’m envious because I started this thing and, and committed to it, but it’s, um, it’s a big commitment and you know, have to,

Neil Howe: (25:01)it’s called LinkedIn connect three 65. Is that what it is?

Bill Smith: (25:05)Yeah, I call it my three 65 connect. Yeah. So for 365 days, I’m, I mentioned, you know, somebody in highlight them. Um, but you, I mean, you don’t have like, you don’t have to make that big commitment like 365 days, but it’s good to just recognize people. I think that’s, that’s the main thing. You don’t have to make it like, you know, I N I have to recognize someone every day, but people like to be recognized and I’ve had some great messages from it. I’ve had people that have, um, he got business from it. No, not from me, but just because they like another one of my connections saw, um, a person that highlighted and they contacted them. And then other people kind of the same thing. Other people that were looking for that certain person, you know, the, whatever they did in, in the, you got connected with them that way. So I liked that. I liked just being a connector of people too. It’s fun, you know, it’s, it’s um, and you’re given value.

Neil Howe: (26:06)Yes, definitely. And you, you did one for me, which I appreciate as well. Like you said, it’s nice to get that shout-out and to get recognized by somebody else, especially if you’re not looking for it. And that happens organically like you’ve been doing. Um, you know,

Neil Howe: (26:26)you know what I want to talk about is you know, what that does for you because ultimately it’s about the know, like, and trust. Well, you’re getting yourself no one, first of all, by doing it 365 days a year, that consistency is really key to get you front and center. And the same people probably are seeing your videos over and over and over again on LinkedIn every day. So you’re getting no on. And then obviously you’re, you’re a person that has put yourself out there as an advocate for others because you’re giving them a Showtime on your tail on them. Uh, what your, what they are doing with, uh, the want of any reciprocation or anything like that. So you position yourself as an advocate on, ultimately people trust those people. So you know, whether it’s somebody directly saying, well, I see you bill all the time doing this. And yeah, I trust he knows what he’s talking about and I’m going to go to him first. Or whether it’s one of your, uh, referrals, those people that you’ve given a shout out to or anybody else in your connections that say w, you know, bill knows his stuff, you know, go see bill. That’s, that’s just how referral marketing works. And like I said, it’s still, it’s still the number one way that most businesses, uh, get their business.

Bill Smith: (27:50)Yeah. And that’s the thing. I put direct business from it and my goal, this whole thing, my goal wasn’t to get business from it. You know, I just thought it was really cool to do. But like direct business, I haven’t got any, but I’ve, I’ve definitely received referrals that have turned into business and turned into clients. So I mean, it does have value, you know, it has value to it. And, um, the other thing that like, LinkedIn can be crazy if you’re on LinkedIn. Like I get, I get messages, like I’m sure everyone does gets like solicitation messages, like, like crazy. And I’ve done it like I’ve done it myself and you know, I realize it doesn’t, it’s, it can’t be like a solicitation message oldK if it’s done right. I think, but like, you know, I was sending some out before and I didn’t get any business from a rally.

Bill Smith: (28:41)I ain’t got some conversations out of it. And, um, it was just, it didn’t feel right. You know, it just, it never felt right and it didn’t feel genuine. You know, if I’m going to send a message to someone now, I’m going to send it, you know, I’m going to send a genuine message to them and I’ve tried automation that it didn’t work for me. You know, it just, it seems like the great thing to do, but it just, it doesn’t, it, it didn’t work. I tried, I gave it a good try too. And um, yeah, it wasn’t any good.

Neil Howe: (29:11)Yeah, I’ve had similar experiences. I know there’s a lot, of course he’s out there that teach people how to do what you were saying. But yeah, I feel it’s not genuine as well. But what you are doing is genuine. And I think that’s a, a much better place to come from. Uh, but what people have to realize also is it’s, you know, connect three 65, you might have to do it for 365 days to really build up that reputation. But I think the message, and this goes with everything marketing and especially when we’re talking about a local listing and Google is this consistency is what what you’re doing has got to be consistent from a getting links to your website to getting reviews on your Google my business page. In fact that the reviews, uh, recency and uh, the number is one of the main ranking factors to be shown on the map.

Bill Smith: (30:10)Yeah. [inaudible] I just started laughing a little bit about consistency because one of my clients I started working with, um, it’s more, it’s not a local business. It’s more like have any commerce thing. But anyway, I wanted to help her out and I said to get content like, like videos are great. Just you talk about what you do and you know, we can put it up on YouTube, then we can have it transcribed. And put it on your website and things like that. But it just the consistency thing, cause I, I was showing her some examples of other people that do what she does on YouTube and how many followers they have. And she’s like, how did they do that? It’s consistency. So I got an a to make, she made ’em full of videos and like we had them up, I kind of tripped him out like over a few days or whatever and she’s like, I’m not getting on it.

Bill Smith: (31:03)This isn’t working. I’m like, it’s it, it’s not like that. It’s not like, you know, you go to the gym one day and you, you know, you know, you know, it’s, it is, she’s looking at the analytics, it’s like seven, seven. Like the engagement time is dropping away. There is no data. Like you have to, you have to be consistent about this, keep putting them out and then people will find you, um, that, you know, that is the thing is consistency. You know, it end even with LinkedIn, like I used to try, I don’t even really connect with people anymore, like go outbound action. But as I’ve been doing this, I, I mean, I’ve always had some inbound connections, but I get a lot of inbound connections in there, like from my local area too. So that, that’s where I like, yeah, those are the ones that are really valuable to me is my, you know, people that are in my state or in my, you know, Naomi. Right. And I get, I get a bunch of those every day. I mean, I don’t even know. I don’t know. I’m like, Oh, 11,000, 11,500 connections or something. But it’s all kind of organically working now.

Neil Howe: (32:09)Yeah. Uh, and that’s, you know, that’s the way to drive it. It’s a very hard thing to do, which is why people hire a SEO companies and people like yourself to do that work for you. You know, I have this interview service as well that, you know, I offer it to people to get content out there so that they have something to, food is very valuable website as well. Well, I take a shift. I think branding is extremely important and it’s something that people I’ve got to work on, uh, consistently in order be seen as the number one most relevant, a choice in the marketplace. But there’s a couple of other things, uh, before we go bill as a technical SEO, uh, things like page speed and the HTTPS are becoming more and more important and ranking factors. Uh, just today I noticed, and I don’t know how long it’s been up there, but on my search engine results, there’s to the right hand side of each result. There’s a little, uh, colorful dogs. I don’t know if you’ve seen that before. And if you click on it, it tells you, it says specifically your connection to this website is secure or your connection to this website is not secure. So, you know, I haven’t seen that yet. Yeah. Like I said, I just noticed that this morning and this is,

Bill Smith: (33:33)Oh, okay. And I’m just looking as we’re talking, I have an update in Chrome, so I don’t know if it’s browser specific or if it’s um, or it could be in the search results itself. Um,

Neil Howe: (33:46)yeah, and I heard from, uh, one of the top guys at Google, the, the very first thing that Google looks for is the, uh, is the site secure. So they’re looking for that frame right away before they look at anything else. They’re checking the security of the site. So it’s becoming penetrative, almost ranking as well to get that HTTPS, especially if you are a local business. And definitely if you’re connect, uh, collecting any kind of information at all from, uh, prospects or customers.

Bill Smith: (34:27)Yeah, I mean it’s just, it’s, you have to, you have to have HTTPS. It’s, you know, it doesn’t cost you really anything. You can, you know, you can set it up on cloud flare or whatever and have it set up. It’s definitely paid services, but call is fine and get you through. Um, it’s, it’s pretty simple to set up most of the time. Um, yeah, but that’s it. It has to be because Brown, a browser level, even, um, if it’s not secure, you’ll get a message. Sometimes when you click on that result, it will just be that, um, warning message, right, that says this site is not secure and then you have to go down and say, advanced, yes, I know what I’m doing and who’s going to do that? If the, you know, if they look out for something, then people aren’t gonna do that.

Neil Howe: (35:16)Yes. He’s finished. Well, yeah, if they aren’t familiar with the website, nobody’s gonna click on that, you know, they to go get an Iris or you know, immediate turnoff. If you have that kind of message. And Google are obviously showing that message more and more. Uh, so people are not even getting to the website and not even visiting. Yeah. The other thing is page load time. Uh, no. I’ve looked at the bounce rates, which means, uh, people have gone to your site, they’re waiting. And how quickly did it get off your site if it hasn’t loaded and the bounce rate, uh, you know, after, if your site doesn’t load within three seconds before events and almost immediately. So what kinds of things can you do to speed up a website?

Bill Smith: (36:02)Um, well first thing I would do, I mean there’s Google page speed insights. It’s a great tool. Um, that’s what I use. I use Google page speeds. I mean there’s GT metrics also, but I like Google page speed insights because Google made it and it’s showing you what they want. Um, and it gives you, once you put your website in there, it gives you a list of things that you can do. It actually even gives you the resources to do it to it. You know, if it’s images, you can actually download the images from Google. But um, I would focus on, and I think they changed it now. The first half they give you, cause there’s 2000 mobile and desktop focus on the mobile side of it. I mean the desktop side is going to be fine. If the mobile is fine, but yeah know I’d really be fast.

Bill Smith: (36:49)I’m all, you know, that’s all it’ll be. It’ll be, if it’s fast on mobile, it’s probably going to be fast on desktop. But um, yeah, making sure your images are the right size, making sure they’re compressed. Um, well one of the big things that usually pops up is render blocking Java script. So if you have, which means it won’t let anything else render on the page until that JavaScript is processed so you can make it so it’s not random blocking some things you just can’t get some things you just, if it’s, I’m calling from outside the website, like a Google font thing, like there’s not too much you can do about that. But yeah, the it Google will give you what that page speed insights. It gives you a lot of the answers right there to what to do. Um, fixing it. Sometimes it can be, you know, it can take a little bit of time, but a lot of times even just the, you know, fixing like the render blocking Java script, um, w we’ll give you a good bump in score.

Neil Howe: (37:50)Yeah. Well, great information. The bill, it’s been great to talk to you. I think there’s a lot of work, uh, that local businesses have to do if they want to show up on the internet and you know, that’s where people are going to find information. Uh, even in the case of what we talked about that referral, uh, marketing, uh, the first thing that you do if you get a business card or a referral from somebody is generally go do a search for that person’s name and their business. Uh, that branding is extremely important as well, right? Yeah. But we’ve, we’ve talked a lot about a Google my business and how to get on there. I think the images, uh, that you talked about was, uh, extremely important and of course you can do videos on there. [inaudible] as well. Um, so the, there’s plenty to do. There’s the technical stuff that we just touched on at the end that can make a difference as well. But um, if, uh, people want to reach out to you, bill for, you know, just more advice or help with some of these things to get them prepared for 20, 20 and beyond. Uh, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Bill Smith: (39:01)Oh, they can send me an email. Um, wSmith@bostonseoservices.org. Um, that’s, that’s probably the best way to get in touch with me. Um, it’s a.org because there was no.com available. So that’s the reason I have people ask me, why did you pick that? I didn’t pick it. It was the only thing that I had available. So

Neil Howe: (39:22)yeah. Well, you know, I was doing a search, uh, earlier today for your business and I put it in.com and I saw it was parked. Oh, is, it wasn’t even a weapon. There isn’t even a website there. So it might be available.

Bill Smith: (39:34)Yeah. Have I for a small fee, I’m sure. Hey. Yeah, exactly. Well, um,

Neil Howe: (39:42)no, I noticed that you were doing a giveaway. Do you have anything that you could entice the listeners here to come down for free? I know you’re all about giving value.

Bill Smith: (39:53)Yeah, absolutely. Um, I have, I, I, I get it like a birthday giveaway that I stopped, but I’ll do it again. I was giving on ’em it was like, I think it was $30,000, so I’m just whoever, if they, I have a local business management platform that I use and it’s a great way to would your post if you wanted to post, which helps you Google, um, Google my business ranked better, um, managers your citations, make sure that there’s about 50 and 60 citations in that to make sure that consistent like some of those top ones, high authority of citations. Um, also, um, manage your reviews, which is really cool with it. So you can send out, if you have an email list or, or text, uh, phone with me, you can text the two of them in and ask for a review. It’s [inaudible] asking for reviews. Just a good way to, I mean, it’s just a good thing for business anyway. Even if it didn’t help you rank, you’d want to know if like somebody was happy with your business or not. So, um, it’s, it’s a nice way to say, Hey, how’d we do? Um, and that also, um, I said the scheduling posts. Yeah, that’s it. So they kind of manages all that. Google my business stuff. You can help you rank

Neil Howe: (41:11)well that is definitely a something worth again thing and taking a look at, again, the email was w Smith, Boston SEO services.org.

Bill Smith: (41:22)Yep. And just email me with that because the, that awful was gone. But I’ll, I’ll definitely honor that to anyone. Awesome.

Neil Howe: (41:31)Well, bill, I appreciate it. Really listen, you really have to check out bill on, uh, LinkedIn as well and see what he’s doing with a, uh, connect three 65. Uh, maybe we’ll take it up yourself as I need to do also, uh, it is a commitment and that it takes consistency, but I think with anything, the results are there for the people that do that. So, uh, again, bill, thank you very much for being my guest. Yeah. Uh, I look forward to continuing this conversation soon, but until then, uh, thanks for being my guests and to our listening audience. If you like what you hear and hit that like button and share and we will see you next time on the show.